You can read the full article from Milwaukee Business Journal here
Liz Brodek has been working a completely new type of job since the pandemic changed life for the businesses she supports along Milwaukee’s Downer and East North avenues.
As executive director of the business improvement districts, or BIDs, along those two main drags, Brodek wears a lot of hats to begin with. Before March, she focused on coordinating everything from large-scale events to trash pickup. But after Covid-19 forced many of the restaurants and stores on those streets to shut their doors, Brodek has deployed her diverse skills to whole new programs.
“My job is to do what is best for the community,” Brodek said. “It’s really taking the community needs and figuring out how to accomplish those.”
In April, Brodek started the East Side On program to highlight local businesses along North Avenue and help them attract more patrons online. She partnered with the Experience Milwaukee Podcast to feature a different business every week, wrote a newsletter featuring Q&As with the owners, and organized online rally events on Facebook where people patronized those businesses during designated times.
“A couple of those instances were incredibly impactful for the businesses that participated,” said Jonathan Jackson, president of the East Side BID and CEO of Milwaukee Film.
Brodek in recent weeks dedicated a lot of time to the Active Streets for Businesses proposal that will let restaurants serve more customers with outdoor tables on sidewalks or in the streets themselves. She coordinated with several city departments and other BID directors like Beth Weirick downtown or Jim Plaisted in the 3rd Ward.
Brodek sifted through city ordinances, a task that relates to her past experience as an attorney, and tracked the latest health information involving the spread of Covid-19. It became very granular, determining spacing of tables allowed by the health department, or the Americans With Disabilities Act requirements for accessibility ramps.
“It’s been everything from talking to every business who might be able and wants to take advantage of this program and figuring out what works for them, what the configurations might be, how that works with (Department of Public Works) safety and ADA requirements, how that works for licensing,” she said. “It’s totally true that the devil is in the details, so as we conceived this great program we really had to drill down.”
That Active Streets concept recently gained final city approval and will soon be enacted.
Brodek started at the East Side BID in 2018 after friend Jeremy Fojut, co-founder of Newaukee, brought the opportunity to her attention and advocated on her behalf to the organization’s board. She was hired this spring to also lead the nearby Downer Avenue BID.
The 2018 hire marked Brodek’s return to Milwaukee after leading similar efforts in Wausau and Eau Claire. Earlier in her career, she practiced law in Milwaukee representing criminal defendants and employment discrimination plaintiffs. Before securing her law degree, she was an assistant organizer for Fighting Bob Fest in Madison.
“People ask how we get into this line of work, and I say you can come from absolutely anywhere and do this because there is an aspect of every single piece of society,” Brodek said. “One minute you are talking to an alderman. The next minute you are cleaning up graffiti or picking up trash. Then you are going to a meeting with a stakeholder, or funder. You really have to pull from a lot of different disciplines.”
Tim Gokhman, managing director of Milwaukee real estate firm New Land Enterprises and East Side BID board member, outlined the many roles Brodek fills for the organization. She handles the legal aspects of its contracts, urban planning, managing sometimes conflicting interests, the political aspects and its accounting, he said. The BIDs are city-approved organizations that receive funding through a special property assessment on commercial real estate.
Both Gokhman and Jackson praised her leadership skills.
“She has a unique combination of community engagement skills, authenticity and business leadership,” Jackson said. “Liz’s move back to Milwaukee is really exciting for our community. We’re just beginning to see her leadership.”
Brodek said her approach is founded on diplomacy and a degree of compromise. Businesses along the commercial corridors don’t always agree, and she always seeks a result where no one has to lose. She used the term, “compassionate but also stern.”
Jackson, for example, said Brodek navigated the challenge of shutting down a stretch of East Ivanhoe Place near North Avenue to traffic. Some businesses, such as the credit union on that block, need the street open to cars. Others benefit from opening it to pedestrians. Jackson said Brodek brokered the solution where the street closes to vehicles only when the credit union is closed for business.
“It’s really being able to drill into someone’s motivations for something and find what is it that is going to make them turn their head,” Brodek said. “There’s rarely a time when anyone has to outright lose. You may have to balance, but we’re all in it for the good of the community and the good of the district. Let’s take that focus and figure out what we all need to bring to the table or sacrifice to get to that point.”
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